A man who bought two luxury cars on finance and then shipped them abroad without paying the full price has been ordered to reimburse his lenders more than £30,000.

John Slater, of Pinhoe Road, entered into a finance arrangement with Santander Bank to borrow money to buy a £24,000 SsangYong Rexton but then failed to meet almost all of the £500 a month payments, Exeter Crown Court was told.

When the company asked him for the vehicle back he said he had no idea where it was. It turned out the defendant had signed a DVLA export document on the same day he purchased the car and that it was probably in Spain.

The defendant pleaded guilty to theft and also asked that another offence involving a £14,000 Mercedes ML320 CDI Sport that ended up in Romania be taken into consideration.

But he escaped immediate imprisonment after telling the judge he was dealing with family issues at the time.

Slater was jailed for nine months and the sentence suspended for two years. He was told to do unpaid work of 150 hours and 20 sessions with probation.

The exact amount he owed the finances companies was not clear but Judge Timothy Rose made a compensation order totalling £30,186 to Santander Finance and Moto Novo Finance. He said if the amount was not accurate they should pursue Slater through the civil court for the rest.

Slater, 54, who has a previous address in Bideford, said he was working as a general manager for an Exeter company and could pay £500 a month compensation.

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Judge Rose said Slater stopped making payments on the first car soon after entering into the agreement in 2014. He said he was just about persuaded that the defendant had not set out to steal the car but acted the way he did because of family issues 'outside of your control'.

He said it was 'extremely tempting' to conclude that Slater had intended to steal the second car from the outset because it was shipped out of the country almost immedietly. But the judge again concluded it was not planned and Slater had been 'naive and reckless'.

He said Slater was a hard working man who had tried to turn his life around after a previous run in with the law when he was young.

When the finance companies tried to get their cars back Slater gave them the 'run around' said the judge.

"You claimed you didn't know where it was then told them it was in Spain. You fed them some stories."